"The trees bent down with his weight"
"The trees bent down with his weight"
"The trees bent down with his weight"
The moon had now risen and the weird scenery of Junganyika was all green lights and blue shadows. As the Doctor snuffed out his candles and Jip curled himself up at his feet the turtle suddenly started humming a tune in his deep bass voice, waving his long neck from side to side in the moonlight.
"What is that tune you are humming?" asked the Doctor.
"That's the 'Elephants' March,'" said the turtle. "They always played it at the Royal Circus of Shalba for the elephants' procession."
"Let's 'ope it 'asn't many verses," grumbled Cheapside, sleepily putting his head under his wing.
The sun had not yet risen on the gloomy waters of Lake Junganyika before Jip felt the Doctor stirring in his hammock, preparing to get up.
Presently Dab-Dab could be heard messing about in the mud below, bravely trying to get breakfast ready under difficult conditions.
Next Cheapside, grumbling in a sleepy chirp, brought his head out from under his wing, gave the muddy scenery one look and popped it back again.
But it was of little use to try to get more sleep now. The camp was astir. John Dolittle, bent on the one idea of hearing that story, had already swung himself out of his hammock and was now washing his face noisily in the lake. Cheapside shook his feathers, swore a few words in Cockney and flew off his tree down to the Doctor's side.
"The Doctor was washing his face in the lake"
"The Doctor was washing his face in the lake"
"The Doctor was washing his face in the lake"
"Look 'ere, Doctor," he whispered, "this ain't an 'olesome place to stay at all. I'm all full of cramp from the damp night air. You'd get webfooted if you loitered in this country long. Listen, you want to be careful about gettin' old Mudface started on his yarn spinning. D'yer know what 'e reminds me of? Them old Crimea War veterans. Once they begin telling their reminiscences there's no stoppin' 'em. 'E looks like one, too, with that long, scrawny neck of 'is. Tell 'im to make it short and sweet—just to give us the outline of his troubles, like, see? The sooner we can shake the mud of this place off our feet and make tracks for Fantippo the better it'll be for all of us."
Well, when breakfast had been disposed of the Doctor sharpened his pencil, got out a notebook and, telling Too-Too to listen carefully, in case he should miss anything, he asked the turtle to begin the story of the Flood.
Cheapside had been right. Although it did not take a fortnight to tell it did take a very full day. Slowly and evenly the sun rose out of the East, passed across the heavens and sank down into the West. And still Mudface went murmuring on, telling of all the wonders he had seen in days long ago, while the Doctor's pencil wiggled untiringly over the pages of his notebook. The only interruptions were when the turtle paused to lean down and moisten his long throat with the muddy water of the lake, or when the Doctor stopped him to ask a question on the natural history of antediluvian times.
Dab-Dab prepared lunch and supper and served them as silently as she could, so as not to interrupt; but for the Doctor they were very scrappy meals. On into the night the story went. And now John Dolittle wrote by candle-light, while all his pets, with the exception of Too-Too, were already nodding or dozing.
At last, about half past ten—to Cheapside's great relief—the turtle pronounced the final words.
"And that, John Dolittle, is the end of the story of the Flood by one who saw it with his own eyes."
For some time after the turtle finished no one spoke. Even the irreverent Cheapside was silent. Little bits of stars, dimmed by the light of a half-full moon, twinkled like tiny eyes in the dim blue dome that arched across the lake. Away off somewhere among the tangled mangroves an owl hooted from the swamp and Too-Too turned his head quickly to listen. Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, seeing the Doctor close his notebook and put away his pencil, blew out the candle.
"Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, blew out the candle"
"Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, blew out the candle"
"Dab-Dab, the economical housekeeper, blew out the candle"
At last the Doctor spoke:
"Mudface, I don't know when, in all my life I have listened to a story that interested me so much. I—I'm glad I came."
"I too am glad, John Dolittle. You are the only one in the world now who understands the speech of animals. And if you had not come my story of the Flood could not have been told. I'm getting very old and do not ever move far away from Junganyika."
"Would it be too much to ask you?" said the Doctor, "to get me some souvenir from the city below the lake?"
"Not at all," said the turtle. "I'll go down and try to get you something right away."
Slowly and smoothly, like some unbelievable monster of former days, the turtle moved his great bulk across his little island and slid himself into the lake without splashing or disturbance of any kind. Only a gentle swirling in the water showed where he had disappeared.
In silence they all waited—the animals now, for the moment, reawakened and full of interest. The Doctor had visions of his enormous friend moving through the slime of centuries at the bottom of the lake, hunting for some souvenir of the great civilization that passed away with the Flood. He hoped that he would bring a book or something with writing on it.
Instead, when at last he reappeared wet and shining in the moonlight, he had a carved stone window-sill on his back which must have weighed over a ton.
"Lor' bless us!" muttered Cheapside. "What a wonderful piano-mover 'e would make to be sure! Great Carter Patterson! Does 'e think the Doctor's goin' to 'ang that on 'is watch-chain?"
"It was the lightest thing I could find," said the turtle, rolling it off his back with a thud that shook the island. "I had hoped I could get a vase or a plate or something you could carry. But all the smaller objects are now covered in fathoms of mud. This I broke off from the second story of the palace—from the queen's bedroom window. I thought perhaps you'd like to see it anyway, even if it was too much for you to carry home. It's beautifully carved. Wait till I wash some of the mud off it."
The candles were lighted again and after the carvings had been cleaned the Doctor examined them with great care and even made sketches of some of them in his notebook.
By the time the Doctor had done, all his party, excepting Too-Too, had fallen asleep. It was only when he heard Jip suddenly snore from the hammock that he realized how late it was. As he blew out the candles again he found that it was very dark, for now the moon had set. He climbed into bed and drew the blankets over him.
When Dab-Dab roused the party next morning the sun was shining through the mist upon the lake doing its best to brighten up the desolate scenery around them.
Poor Mudface awoke with an acute attack of gout. He had not been bothered by this ailment since the Doctor's arrival. But now he could scarcely move at all without great pain. And Dab-Dab brought his breakfast to him where he lay.
John Dolittle was inclined to blame himself for having asked him to go hunting in the lake for souvenirs the night before.
"I'm afraid that was what brought on the attack," said the Doctor, getting out his little black bag from the canoe and mixing some medicines. "But you know you really ought to move out of this damp country to some drier climate. I am aware that turtles can stand an awful lot of wet. But at your age one must be careful, you know."
"Mixing the turtle's medicine"
"Mixing the turtle's medicine"
"Mixing the turtle's medicine"
"There isn't any other place I like as well," said Mudface. "It's so hard to find a country where you're not disturbed these days."
"Here, drink this," the Doctor ordered, handing him a tea-cup full of some brown mixture. "I think you will find that that will soon relieve the stiffness in your front legs."
The turtle drank it down. And in a minute or two he said he felt much better and could now move his legs freely without pain.
"It's a wonderful medicine, that," said he. "You are surely a great Doctor. Have you got any more of it?"
"I will make up several bottles of the mixture and leave them with you before I go," said John Dolittle. "But you really ought to get on high ground somewhere. This muddy little hummock is no place for you to live. Isn't there a regular island in the lake, where you could make your home—if you're determined not to leave the Junganyika country?"
"Not one," said the turtle. "It's all like this, just miles and miles of mud and water. I used to like it—in fact I do still. I wouldn't wish for anything better if it weren't for this wretched gout of mine."
"Well," said the Doctor, "if you haven't got an island we must make one for you."
"Make one!" cried the turtle. "How would you go about it?"
"I'll show you very shortly," said John Dolittle. And he called Cheapside to him.
"Will you please fly down to Fantippo," he said to the City Manager, "and give this message to Speedy-the-Skimmer. And ask him to send it out to all the postmasters of the branch offices: The Swallow Mail is very shortly to be closed—at all events for a considerable time. I must now be returning to Puddleby and it will be impossible for me to continue the service in its present form after I have left No-Man's-Land. I wish to convey my thanks to all the birds, postmasters, clerks and letter-carriers who have so generously helped me in this work. The last favor which I am going to ask of them is a large one; and I hope they will give me their united support in it. I want them to build me an island in the middle of Lake Junganyika. It is for Mudface the turtle, the oldest animal living, who in days gone by did a very great deal for man and beast—for the whole world in fact—when the earth was passing through the darkest chapters in all its history. Tell Speedy to send word to all bird leaders throughout the world. Tell him I want as many birds as possible right away to build a healthy home where this brave turtle may end his long life in peace. It is the last thing I ask of the post office staff and I hope they will do their best for me."
Cheapside said that the message was so long he was afraid he would never be able to remember it by heart. So John Dolittle told him to take it down in bird scribble and he dictated it to him all over again.
That letter, the last circular order issued by the great Postmaster General to the staff of the Swallow Mail, was treasured by Cheapside for many years. He hid it under his untidy nest in St. Edmund's left ear on the south side of the chancel of St. Paul's Cathedral. He always hoped that the pigeons who lived in the front porch of the British Museum would some day get it into the Museum for him. But one gusty morning, when men were cleaning the outside of the cathedral, it got blown out of St. Edmund's ear and, before Cheapside could overtake it, it sailed over the housetops into the river and sank.
The sparrow got back to Junganyika late that afternoon. He reported that Speedy had immediately, on receiving the Doctor's message, forwarded it to the postmasters of the branch offices with orders to pass it on to all the bird-leaders everywhere. It was expected that the first birds would begin to arrive here early the following morning.
It was Speedy himself who woke the Doctor at dawn the next day. And while breakfast was being eaten he explained to John Dolittle the arrangements that had been made.
The work, the Skimmer calculated, would take three days. All birds had been ordered to pick up a stone or a pebble or a pinch of sand from the seashore on their way and bring it with them. The larger birds (who would carry stones) were to come first, then the middle-sized birds and then the little ones with sand.
Soon, when the sky over the lake was beginning to fill up with circling ospreys, herons and albatrosses, Speedy left the Doctor and flew off to join them. There, taking up a position in the sky right over the centre of the lake, he hovered motionless, as a marker for the stone-droppers. Then the work began.
All day long a never-ending stream of big birds, a dozen abreast, flew up from the sea and headed across Lake Junganyika. The line was like a solid black ribbon, the birds, dense, packed and close, beak to tail. And as each dozen reached the spot where Speedy hovered, twelve stones dropped into the water. The procession was so continuous and unbroken that it looked as though the sky were raining stones. And the constant roar of them splashing into the water out of the heavens could be heard a mile off.
"A never-ending stream of big birds"
"A never-ending stream of big birds"
"A never-ending stream of big birds"
The lake in the centre was quite deep. And of course tons and tons of stone would have to be dropped before the new island would begin to show above the water's surface. This gathering of birds was greater even than the one the Doctor had addressed in the hollow of No-Man's-Land. It was the biggest gathering of birds that had ever been seen. For now not only the leaders came but thousands and millions of every species. John Dolittle got tremendously excited and jumping into his canoe he started to paddle out nearer to the work. But Speedy grew impatient that the top of the stone-pile was not yet showing above the water; and he gave the order to double up the line—and then double again, as still more birds came to help from different parts of the world. And soon, with a thousand stones falling every fraction of a second, the lake got so rough that the Doctor had to put back for the turtle's hummock lest his canoe capsize.
All that day, all that night and half the next day, this continued. At last about noon on the morrow the sound of the falling stones began to change. The great mound of seething white water, like a fountain in the middle of the lake, disappeared; and in its place a black spot showed. The noise of splashing changed to the noise of stone rattling on stone. The top of the island had begun to show.
"It's like the mountains peeping out after the Flood," Mudface muttered to the Doctor.
Then Speedy gave the order for the middle-sized birds to join in; and soon the note of the noise changed again—shriller—as tons and tons of pebbles and gravel began to join the downpour.
Another night and another day went by, and at dawn the gallant Skimmer came down to rest his weary wings; for the workers did not need a marker any longer—now that a good-sized island stood out on the bosom of the lake for the birds to drop their burdens on.
Bigger and bigger grew the home-made land and soon Mudface's new estate was acres wide. Still another order from Speedy; and presently the rattling noise changed to a gentle hiss. The sky now was simply black with birds; the pebble-shower had ceased; it was raining sand. Last of all, the birds brought seeds: grass seeds, the seeds of flowers, acorns and the kernels of palms. The turtle's new home was to be provided with turf, with wild gardens, with shady avenues to keep off the African sun.
When Speedy came to the hummock and said, "Doctor, it is finished," Mudface gazed thoughtfully out into the lake and murmured:
"Now proud Shalba is buried indeed: she has an island for a tombstone! It's a grand home you have given me, John Dolittle.—Alas, poor Shalba!—Mashtu the king passes. But Mudface the turtle—lives on!"
Mudface's landing on his new home was quite an occasion. The Doctor paddled out alongside of him till they reached the island. Until he set foot on it, John Dolittle himself had not realized what a large piece of ground it was. It was more than a quarter of a mile across. Round in shape, it rose gently from the shores to the flat centre, which was a good hundred feet above the level of the lake.
Mudface was tremendously pleased with it; climbing laboriously to the central plateau—from where you could see great distances over the flat country around—he said he was sure his health would quickly improve in this drier air.
Dab-Dab prepared a meal—the best she could in the circumstances—to celebrate what she called the turtle's house-warming. And everyone sat down to it; and there was much gayety and the Doctor was asked to make a speech in honor of the occasion.
"Dab-Dab prepared a meal"
"Dab-Dab prepared a meal"
"Dab-Dab prepared a meal"
Cheapside was dreadfully afraid that Mudface would get up to make a speech in reply and that it would last into the following day. But to the sparrow's relief the Doctor, immediately he had finished, set about preparations for his departure.
He made up the six bottles of gout mixture and presented them to Mudface with instructions in how it should be taken. He told him that although he was closing up the post office for regular service it would always be possible to get word to Puddleby. He would ask several birds of passage to stop here occasionally; and if the gout got any worse he wanted Mudface to let him know by letter.
The old turtle thanked him over and over again and the parting was a very affecting one. When at last the goodbyes were all said, they got into the canoe and set out on the return journey.
Reaching the mouth of the river at the southern end of the lake they paused a moment before entering the mangrove swamps and looked back. And there in the distance they could just see the shape of the old turtle standing on his new island, watching them. They waved to him and pushed on.
"He looks just the same as we saw him the night we arrived," said Dab-Dab—"you remember? Like a statue on a pedestal against the sky."
"Poor old fellow!" murmured the Doctor. "I do hope he will be all right now.... What a Wonderful life!—What a wonderful history!"
"Didn't I tell you, Doctor," said Cheapside, "that it was going to be the longest story in the world?—Took a day and half a night to tell."
"Ah, but it's a story that nobody else could tell," said John Dolittle.
"Good thing too," muttered the Sparrow. "It would never do if there was many of 'is kind spread around this busy world.—Of course, meself, I don't believe a word of the yarn. I think he made it all up. 'E 'ad nothin' else to do—sittin' there in the mud, century after century, cogitatin'."
The journey down through the jungle was completed without anything special happening. But when they reached the sea and turned the bow of the canoe westward they came upon a very remarkable thing. It was an enormous hole in the beach—or rather a place where the beach had been taken away bodily. Speedy told the Doctor that it was here that the birds had picked up the stones and sand on their way to Junganyika. They had literally carried acres of the seashore nearly a thousand miles inland. Of course in a few months the action of the surf filled in the hole, so that the place looked like the rest of the beach.
But that is why, when many years later some learned geologists visited Lake Junganyika, they said that the seashore gravel on an island there was a clear proof that the sea had once flowed through that neighborhood. Which was true—in the days of the Flood. But the Doctor was the only scientist who knew that Mudface's island, and the stones that made it, had quite a different history.
On his arrival at the post office the Doctor was given his usual warm reception by the king and dignitaries of Fantippo who paddled out from the town to welcome him back.
Tea was served at once; and His Majesty seemed so delighted at renewing this pleasant custom that John Dolittle was loath to break the news to him that he must shortly resign from the Foreign Mail Service and sail for England. However, while they were chatting on the veranda of the houseboat a fleet of quite large sailing vessels entered the harbor. These were some of the new merchant craft of Fantippo which plied regularly up and down the coast, trading with other African countries. The Doctor pointed out to the king that mails intended for foreign lands could now be quite easily taken by these boats to the bigger ports on the coast where vessels from Europe called every week.
From that the Doctor went on to explain to the King, that much as he loved Fantippo and its people, he had many things to attend to in England and must now be thinking of going home. And of course as none of the natives could talk bird-language, the Swallow Mail would have to be replaced by the ordinary kind of post office.
The Doctor found that His Majesty was much more distressed at the prospect of losing his good white friend and his afternoon tea on the houseboat than at anything else which the change would bring. But he saw that the Doctor really felt he had to go; and at length, with tears falling into his tea-cup, he gave permission for the Postmaster General of Fantippo to resign.
Great was the rejoicing among the Doctor's pets and the patient swallows when the news got about that John Dolittle was really going home at last. Gub-Gub and Jip could hardly wait while the last duties and ceremonies of closing the houseboat to the public and transferring the Foreign Mails Service to the office in the town were performed. Dab-Dab bustled cheerfully from morning to night while Cheapside never ceased to chatter of the glories of London, the comforts of a city life and all the things he was going to do as soon as he got back to his beloved native haunts.
There was no end to the complimentary ceremonies which the good King Koko and his courtiers performed to honor the departing Doctor. For days and days previous to his sailing, canoes came and went between the town and the houseboat bearing presents to show the good will of the Fantippans. During all this, having to keep smiling the whole time, the Doctor got sadder and sadder at leaving his good friends. And he was heartily glad when the hour came to pull up the anchor and put to sea.
People who have written the history of the Kingdom of Fantippo all devote several chapters to a mysterious white man who in a very short space of time made enormous improvements in the mail, the communications, the shipping, the commerce, the education and the general prosperity of the country. Indeed it was through John Dolittle's quiet influence that King Koko's reign came to be looked upon as the Golden Age in Fantippan history. A wooden statue still stands in the market-place to his memory.
"A wooden statue still stands to his memory"
"A wooden statue still stands to his memory"
"A wooden statue still stands to his memory"
The excellent postal service continued after he left. The stamps with Koko's face on them were as various and as beautiful as ever. On the occasion of the first annual review of the Fantippo Merchant Fleet a very fine two-shilling stamp was struck in commemoration, showing His Majesty inspecting his new ships through a lollipop quizzing-glass. The King himself became a stamp-collector and his album was as good as a family photo-album, containing as it did so many pictures of himself. The only awkward incident that happened in the record of the post office which the Doctor had done so much to improve was when some ardent stamp-collectors, wishing to make the modern stamps rare, plotted to have the King assassinated in order that the current issues should go out of date. But the plot was happily discovered before any harm was done.
Years afterwards, the birds visiting Puddleby told the Doctor that the King still had the flowers in the window-boxes of his old houseboat carefully tended and watered in his memory. His Majesty, they said, never gave up the fond hope that some day his good white friend would come back to Fantippo with his kindly smile, his instructive conversation and his jolly tea-parties on the post office veranda.
THE END